Need help optimizing OBS + Geometry Dash

[SuperKiwiTawa]

Hello all, I am new to the bitsum community. I hope you are all doing well. I only recently began to tinker with Process Lasso but I do have an educational background in Computer Science.

Today I am asking for help to boost my FPS in Geometry Dash while OBS is open. I need OBS to record and stream my in-game level completions, and I need high FPS in Geometry Dash.

Geometry Dash is single-threaded. I know this based on reports made online from other GD community members (Apparently, it uses OpenGL). The game appears to perform all of its work within just one of my cores.

Geometry Dash has a built-in FPS limiter, and the limit could go as high as 9999. It's normal and competitively advantageous to play levels at very high framerates such as 240, 360, 480, etc., and my goal is to play on the highest FPS possible.

When I stress test my CPU by playing a CPU-intensive section of a level, the utilization on one of my cores maxes out at a consistent 100%. My FPS at this section is 200 give or take. However, when OBS is open at the same time, it drops down to 150 give or take.

I was wondering... since Geometry Dash only uses a single core, I can have OBS excluded from using this particular core while it is open. I could set OBS's affinity and its process would never interfere with Geometry Dash. I have tried to do this but I am running into issues. I've pinpointed the CPU core Geometry Dash uses via Resource Monitor (I'm on Windows 10) and unchecked its affinity for OBS, but OBS still seems to interfere with Geometry Dash's FPS. I've set this affinity rule to "Always" but this does not help.

I've also run into glitchy audio issues with Geometry Dash, but I think that can be fixed by raising the priority on a particular audio-type process. I saw a video tutorial on that.

Please help me, I'm just a novice with PL but I feel as though this is a fantastic idea to optimize the game. Not only could it help me, it could help the rest of the community, especially those who play competitively.

Specs:

Computer: ASUS ROG Strix Hero III (it's a gaming laptop)

Device name   DESKTOP-U2JBI76
Processor   Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz   2.59 GHz (It's locked if that wasn't obvious)
Installed RAM   16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
Device ID   90320154-5FDD-48C7-930C-9546664C72A7
Product ID   00330-51995-30683-AAOEM
System type   64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch   No pen or touch input is available for this display

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (Mobile)

Please let me know if you need any additional information about my computer. Thank you so much.

[GDMonkey]

Hey there, welcome to the community! I can definitely relate to your goal of boosting FPS while running OBS. Since Geometry Dash is single-threaded and uses OpenGL, it tends to max out one core, which can be a bottleneck when you're recording or streaming.

You've already made a good start by adjusting the core affinity for OBS. Another thing you can try is setting Geometry Dash's priority to high in Task Manager, while setting OBS to normal or even low priority. This could help prioritize Geometry Dash's performance over OBS. Also, make sure your NVIDIA settings are optimized for maximum performance—sometimes setting the game to high-performance mode via the NVIDIA Control Panel helps.

If the audio issues persist, consider adjusting your buffer settings or using a dedicated audio driver to help smooth things out.

I also recommend checking out https://geodash.org/ to practice your Geometry Dash skills. It's a great platform for improving and testing performance in real-time, especially in a school setting where you can fit in some extra gameplay during breaks.

Let me know if these tips help!